The Darkened Crystals
by Redmaging
Summary: FFI. The world has fallen to darkness. If it is to be saved, the four Crystals must be restored to grace, and the light. Four warriors of prophecy have emerged to do just that- at any cost.


Note: First, a disclaimer. The Final Fantasy series belongs to Square Enix. I do not lay claim to it, nor do I profit from this.

That said- This is the beginning of The Darkened Crystals, a fanfiction based off of Square Enix's Final Fantasy I. Because of FFI's lack of characterization, the personalities of the main party are created by me, and many events of the game will be interpreted further. I hope you still enjoy it! Thank you for taking the time to stop by.

-Red Maging

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><p><strong>The Darkened Crystals<strong>

**Prologue**

He drifted aimlessly. It seemed to him that he had known nothing but emptiness. He could not remember a time when there had been anything else- when there had been neither warmth nor cold, when there had been nothing above or below him, nothing to surround him. He knew nothing else but this lack of things, and yet somehow, he had to have once known something else, because he knew that something was missing that should have been there with him, in the emptiness- that it would not have been empty if that something was there. He did not know what it was, but its lack kept him adrift, but the knowledge- the feeling of knowing that there was something missing- kept him from drifting apart, even as he drifted away.

Eventually (he had not realized until now that time was missing from this place- he had not known it was not there until he wondered how long he had taken to notice) he became aware of something that was not him and that was not emptiness. 'Where are we?' it asked. He did not answer, at first. It was another thing that the emptiness did not have. But he became aware that it had been some time since the question was asked.

'We are here.' he answered, for it was the only thing he could say. 'We exist.' The other was confused, but it still reached out, and he remembered that there was space and it separated them- the emptiness was a distance, now that there was someone to be distant from. He reached out toward the other, then out as far as he could- but there were no boundaries, nothing to reach to except for the other. So he stopped reaching, because there was too much emptiness to fill.

The other did not come close to being lost, the way he had been before. Perhaps, he thought, it was because he was there. The other had always had another presence there, to be together with, so it had not forgotten being together. It had not been alone for so long that it forgot that there was anything but alone.

It spoke to him, until he remembered speaking. It spoke to him of Light. 'I remember,' he said, when he did. 'Light was missing. That was what the Emptiness was not.'

'There is no light here,' he (for the other, too, was a he, it had told him) said. 'We were once light.'

Some time later (he could not have said how long it had been, but he knew that time had passed) a third presence joined them. It was another, the two knew, who had once been light. They joined it, and it spoke to them.

'Water, Air?' it called them. He did not understand the words, at first. But the second to arrive said, 'Yes, I am Water,' as though he had almost forgotten. And he, the first to come to the emptiness, remembered that yes, he was Air. He remembered surrounding the world, and caressing it with breezes, and running through treetops, and raging and howling.

'I was Air,' he said. 'I was Light. But those things are gone from here.'

'I am Fire,' the newcomer said. 'Do not say was. We still exist. The Light is gone, but we are still here. Wherever here is.'

More time passed, with the three of them together. There was a sense of expectancy. There was surely more that would happen, for something had happened twice. There was more to come for them, Air knew, even though he could not say how he did. He knew it in the way Fire and Water were counter to one another, perfectly harmonious in their opposites. He knew it in the way he almost but not did not quite fit into this balance. There was something more to come, something that was missing, even with the lack of Light. They could not be balanced without the Light, but there was something else missing before they could come close.

Earth joined them in a shorter time than it had taken Fire, after Water's appearance. Air reveled in the sense of time, in a way that the others did not understand. They had never been alone in the darkness, after all.

'So I too have fallen to Darkness,' Earth said. For this truly was Darkness, even more than Emptiness, than a loss of the Light. 'Then the world has no Light left.'

'No,' Fire said. 'There may be no Light left, but there is hope. We four together were the Light.'

'But the Darkness surrounds us.' Water said. 'We cannot escape it.'

Air remembered the emptiness when it had been him alone within it. He remembered the change every time each other arrived. It had become Darkness only when they had been there to exist beyond the Darkness. He remembered the vastness of it. But he also remembered the lack of hope.

'We four together can do something.' He told them. 'We must. If we do not, we will become darkness, instead of being darkness. Surely, if we exist, the Light does, though it may be lost.'

Earth was the first to agree. She had not been in the darkness long enough to truly lose hope. (Air, on the other hand, had been in Darkness long enough to know hopelessness, and realize that together, they had a chance.) And as she agreed, the darkness grew less around them, though it did not fade. Seeing this, Fire and Water were both quick to agree. Perhaps they did not have a chance, but they could not simply fade away to Darkness. They were once light, and to disappear so easily was not their nature. So instead they fought against the Darkness that was their prison, combining all of their strength.

Beyond them, in the world that had been cast to darkness by the disappearance of the light of the crystals, the world slowly began to crumble and waver. Great creatures emerged from the Darkness. Civilizations crumbled as the earth and skies betrayed them. Famine and drought spread rampant, and and everywhere there was to be found only chaos and destruction.

And yet, at the heart of it all, there came to be four Crystals- and those crystals shone with Light...


End file.
